Not a worm to be had

A Song Thrush looked for insects among the fallen leaves in the scrubby patch by the Lido. In these dry conditions it won't have had any worms for months.

A Robin in the same place found what must have been a dull-coloured moth, which it ate.

The usual Jackdaw sidled up, this time with two friends. Word gets out that peanuts are on offer.

This young Jay is one of the offspring of the pair which were flying around the Serpentine Gallery recently. It was on a half-dead oak tree north of the Flower Walk, where I had gone to try to find the second pair of Little Owls that have been calling recently. There was just one very short call, not enough to find the place.

The male owl at the gallery looked down from his usual lime tree.

The male Peregrine was on the tower, in the middle of preening and looking very disarranged.

A Grey Heron perched on the closed gate of the Lido.

A Cormorant flapped furiously on a post by the Serpentine island. It was drying its wings, but they would have dried anyway without all this frantic effort.

The resident Cormorant in the Italian Garden rested on the kerb of one of the pools.

The mother of the single Great Crested Grebe chick on the Serpentine was taking time off from attending to the noisy young one, and had a stretch and a preen.

The Mute Swan 4DVZ accompanied her cygnets past the island ...

... and 4DTT was on the far side of the Vista with her single cygnet.

Canada Geese collected at the edge, waiting for a chance to graze on the remains of the grass. It's not a good place as they are constantly interrupted by dog owners encouraging their pets into the water. The large and hideous signs recently painted on the tarmac don't make the slightest difference, as you would expect. It seems odd that they don't graze on the lawn under the Henry Moore sculpture, where Egyptians go routinely. They don't even have to fly, they can walk there from the edge of the water.

The Egyptian pair in the Italian Garden climbed up the duckboard to get out of the pool. It seems a strange thing to say, but I really don't think that they realised till recently that these boards were a way of getting in an out. Nor did the Coots until this year, but then they suddenly got the idea and the Egyptians have copied them.

More and more Pochards are collecting on the fallen poplar at Peter Pan.

A Batman hoverfly browsed on a strawflower in the Rose Garden. It has been a very poor year for hoverflies and there are some normally common species that I haven't seen at all, such as the big Hornet hoverfly.

It's easy for Common Carder bees to feed on the little mauve convolvulus flowers at the edge of the Dell ...

... but when a big Buff-Tailed Bumblebee lands on one, the flower tips over and it has to hang on tight.